My biggest problem with the newer rts games is there’s too much invested in the multiplayer component at the expense of single player experience. The last few weeks I’ve reinstalled homeworld, DoW, AoE 2 and are having a great time. The essence of these types games have been lost in newer games to dull first hour of boring chores or the fun sucked out of them to keep them balanced for multiplayer.
Your first point is reflected in GiantGrantGaming's survey, that 80% of the RTS genre never enters multiplayer in the first place, with only 7% wanting Esports on launch compared to the 65~% who want a campaign on launch.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests! I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out. Oh, and good name for the podcast.
@30:00 At a fundamental level I think the big problem is the needs of the industry as it exists in its current form. People blame F2P models, phones, culture wars, and they are all cancer but the more I think about, it the more it seems it is simply a function of the size of these companies. There is very little room for creativity in a place like EA or Activision. There can't be. The cost of failure is too high. Hell, we're seeing exactly that sort of failure play out across the industry pretty much at time of recording. Ubisoft is pretty much staggering around the room tripping over its guts like a zombie at time of recording. The hypercompetitive market that the big titans operate in forces them to try and latch on to any sort of success and ride it into the ground. Anything that can't meet that bar, simply cannot exist. Games out of those studios have to be live service, because it allows continued 'line go up' long past the release of the game for very little effort. They have to work that way though because they are publicly traded companies and the investor class needs an ever growing slice of the pie. Problem is though and Ben hits on it at the 35 minute mark is that the market they are trying to capture with a live service game simply doesn't exist. Most people want to play their 20 hours and move on. They don't want to play the same game for a thousand hours... but the publishers need the live service to survive because games cost so flipping much to make that they need the ability to churn out cheap content for the next two years that people will buy in order to make the line keep going up, while they shovel money into the next big shiny... And then people wonder why they grind their staff into dust. Then Lucid's point on the difficulty of AI programming for pathfinding means that the game can't be cheap, because it is very hard to do. It's the same reason why complex turn based strategy games will always be niche. It's hard to do good AI. The AI for some sort of cover shooter/action adventure/stealth/FPS can be 'good enough' by simply not being completely brainless, recognizing where the player is in relation to themselves, knowing what cover is and finally, which way to point the loud end of their sharp object. Give bosses a pattern for the player to work out. Think everything from Assassins Creed, to Call of Duty, to God of War to Cyberpunk to that Chinese game about the magic monkey that got real popular for a while... Name a big banner game from one of the big studios and it will probably fit that box. They only work because they DON'T spend money on AI can therefor spend money on cool shiny things like the lighting effects on the weaponskin you just unlocked and blow peoples minds with the graphics.
I think this is pretty likely. The only successful RTS games from now on will be cheaply made, then their relatively small return will be worth that tiny investment.
Without even watching fully I can tell confidently that the fall of rts can be blamed almost entirely on the idea of pvp and competetive gameplay, while wast majority of the rts players care pretty much only about capaign/skirmish vs bots
RTS is not a dead genre as in it's lacking a fan-base. It's just that most studios and publishers are more attracted to genres that are more financially attractive. Currently, and for the last few years, most publishers have been almost obsessed with 'games as a service' green-lighting titles like MMO's and team shooters.
I find all this pathfinding talk kinda funny since one of the more popular RTS games, Starcraft Brood War has a lot of janky pathfinding itself! Good luck getting your squad of Dragoons down the ramp nicely :) I do agree that it feels like a lot of art has been lost in game dev in general and RTS games are incredibly hard to make. I personally think classic RTS genre isn't dead, but it was too successful at spawning new ones to it's own detriment. Back in the day if you wanted to play a MoBA, a TD or an auto battler, you played RTS. Like I think back to Stronghold's economy missions and honestly is there much difference between that and Factorio/Mindustry? You collect resources and build up a base while defending from occasional attacks from enemies. So is Factorion an RTS? Mindustry even has PvP, and mission selection. Basically my point is that most of the casual RTS players have found their own more mechanically niche genre that they switched to and have little reason to go back to playing RTS games that might come with a lot of extra things they don't enjoy. There is a good video that talk more about this called: Why are some new RTS not fun? Are they even proper RTS games? by GrubbyTalks Since this is the first episode I wish you guys talked more about what this podcast will be about. Just gaming in general? Also ending the episode with an announcement of what the next one will be about is always nice since the listener can 'prepare' for it in some way. Also please put links to videos that you reference in the description. Overall good episode, looking forward to the next one
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, analysis and feedback. I like your point about games like factorio and mindustry carving out their own niches.. As for future episodes; next one is going to be about AOW4 - is it good or is it trash :D We have a few folks who have pretty different thoughts about it.
Quick response regarding the last bit of your comment - we (I'm Shaun from this video) have published two audio only episodes prior but we hadn't figured out a podcast name at the time. They'll be uploaded here ASAP, they're currently up on Ben's TH-cam channel and I wanted to get his ok before uploading them here as well. As far as I'm aware it'll be a general gaming podcast. A mix of deep dives, interviews and more casual episodes. Whatever we want to talk about really, aiming for something good quality but not over-produced if that makes sense. Very much appreciate the feedback! We're figuring out some of this stuff as we go and it's a very busy time of year, with people being on holidays and that sort of thing but I'd like to get an end of year/our personal gaming highlights episode published by the new year and we're going to do that Age of Wonders episode Lucid referred to.
Giant Grand Games made a video about the same topic a while back called: The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why. He made the argument that the genre isn't dead, but the developers are just not putting in the work to give the new RTS games a solid foundation. And that's something RTS games need far more than other games. Though you are right that I can also see the problem being a lack of expertise. There are a few other problems, like trying to cater too much to multiplayer and E-Sports and ignoring the single player and campaigns. 18:15 I agree with the readability, though I do think that Starcraft is not that bad with it's readability. It might be because I played it more than Age of Empires, but I can distinguish the Starcraft units better than the Age of Empire ones. Screenshots are always harder to get a read on because the units don't move. If you see the units in the actual game they are far more distinct due to movement. But yeah, there are definitely games that focus too much on looking nice. I have one game that is basically Conquest of Elysium in 3D and the unit all looks so similar that you have no idea what is what. One old RTS game I love to play from time to time is Warzone 2100. 1:14:04 There are some pretty big difference in power levels between single and multiplayer in Total War Warhammer. You can boost low tier units to absurd level with lord skills and technologies, which are both missing in the multiplayer battles. Also for multiplayer there are unit limits. For example you can only bring a certain amount of big monsters. 1:16:46 The multiplayer games are definitely also tactically. There are some pretty hard counters and just throwing your big monster into the wrong blob on infantry can easily lose you the game. Total Warhammer is definitely not immersion breaking for me as it's a high fantasy setting and you have lore characters performe even more absurd feats than you can do in the game. I think one of the issues might be that the Warhammer series had a very silly start. Case in point: The naming convention for the Lizardmen. 1:34:59 The one problem I had with Age of Wonders 4 is: Too many decisions that matter too little. I want a game that lets me make impactful decisions. And not having to constantly tweak things for a minuscule outcomes. I enjoy Planetfall a lot more in that regard as it allows me to make decision who's impact I can feel. I agree, it isn't dead. Especially since there a lot of older RTS games that are still played a lot. Age of Empires 2. Supreme Commander Forever. Probably quite a few more.
Is not dead, we just need a good new game. But since Developers cant cash in on the genre they wouldnt make. You cant microtransaction a RTS, neither can you create a Season pass of it. Well, they could try, but wouldnt make any ficking sense. Since a RTS should be working and finished completely.
Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders, Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Army Men (rts), Rise of Nations, Pretorians a few lesser known rts games from early 2000s
Subscribed. I like the subjects and the insights. Since Lucid asked for honest feedback, here it goes: I don't know the names of the other two guys it would be nice if the guy on the left had a greenscreen, Lucid had a camera and everyeone had their nametags. It is hard to understand the guy on the left. It would also be nice if the games you were going to talk about had the gameplay showing on the screen instead of searching for it real time. The searching for information and images should be done in a different screen and it only put on the shared screen if the information or image is found. In general, everyone should be more high energy.
To stay on the topic, i heard all of them ok during a drive, so dont know where that is comming from. And I liked the realtime showing of games in the background. Its a podcast and most of the time they dont show anything, so if one/3 hosts can show some stuff while the other 2 are talking is a plus vs just having a static screen. Not to say your points arent valid, just that some of us have different take on them.
Main reason why I don't prefer RTS strategy games is the required apm skills for high level play. I can just pour some coffee/tea and relax while playing turn based ones and be just fine. If I want to play a game that requires continuous attention, I go for Mobas(only Dota 2) as it requires way less apm. I used to average ~170 apm in Starcraft2 but as I lost my youth It became harder and harder for me to keep up and I eventually lost interest as it became very tiring. Edit: I am not interested in playing RTS games single player after finishing campaigns.
You really don't need high APM skills for most RTS games until you hit professional levels of play, which 99.9% of people will never reach (nor want to, I suspect). I think competitive Starcraft etc has really contributed to a false perception there and that's a big contributor to people abandoning RTS now. Lucid and I had a disagreement on this point though and I forget if we brought it up here or not, but if not it might be a good addendum episode.
I love multiplayer, but somehow it usually hurts too much when loosing in an RTS. I don't know why. Maybe because of the time invested in every game. I don't experience the same problem with FPS or Dota. How can one make RTS PvP sustainable/fun for casual/normal players? TBS don't have the same emotional impact, but that's not an option for me because of how long time each game takes. Maybe TBT thoug..
More of this! Thanks! You forgot about Zero-K. It deserves a mention. I would like to hear a podcast about how open source can create new technical, mechanic and content baselines. Especially for hard stuff like RTS.
Think Shaun mentioned it briefly but yes, good catch! I (BATTLEMODE) didn't play Zero-K so I've no experience with it, but I do like Beyond All Reason a lot. In fact, I still love the original Total Annihilation. It still plays very well today.
As a person that's never really liked real-time strategy games because they aren't strategy. I really think they're poised to make a huge comeback. You don't actually do strategy as much as you do tactics in an RTS. You only have tactical control. Aka, clicking units. With AI, I can voice command instead, and let the AI handle the tactics, while I think strategy and big picture. Same thing with real-time 4X games, like like X-4 Foundations. And space sims like X-Wing/TIE Fighter.
BATTLEMODE here, I forget exactly which one it was, but I think that battle was played on a youtube series on LA Feminie I did back on release. I won the battle handily but as usual lost a bunch of communion slaves because I can't be bothered with math when I'm playing :D
1:15:00 the conversation gets kinda weird and inconsistent here. They start with criticizing TW as being silly and not-grounded what with the fantasy warmaking going on but then in Conquest of Elysium there're all kinds of broken techniques and he's praising it all. It comes across as merely praising the game you like rather than making a meaningful critique.
To answer that, you have to understand that each game plays to a certain kind of desire in the player. The early TW games were historical and were pretty damn good for historical accuracy, as far as RTS games go. So to go from that to seeing a Hero + artillery unit tie up and destroy a 1,000+ man army is incredibly immersion breaking. Warhammer is still tied to some expectation of realism from the player. Conquest of Elysium doesn't have the same expectation of realism from the player, but still manages the realism far better than TW: Warhammer. In CoE, even a powerfully equipped hero that MIGHT be able to tank a whole army can still be killed by a single peasant's arrow with some luck, and there is nothing inherently unfair in the game as a result. Sure, you can run across situations that are difficult to overcome in the short term but knowledge is king, and learning the game mechanics tames those seemingly "broken" situations into something you can actually handle. Also consider the situation I discussed with Master of Magic vs Age of Wonders 4 and the removal of flying units. Lucid makes a great point about power fantasy: TW: Warhammer is a great power fantasy game but it is easily cheesed and that ruins the fun if you're the kind of gamer who cannot stop yourself playing with cheesy tactics. Conquest of Elysium can be cheesed too but you have to search harder for those cheesy strategies, and they are far less obvious.
@@battlemode That is interesting. Is CoE easier or harder to cheese than Dominions? I had heard that CoE was less serious (and therefore, I assumed, easier to break). That is a fair point about player expectations. I've long been in the TW3 sphere, so I reckon I stopped seeing the absurdities as such and more as simply aspects of the game. That really sucks about removing flying units. I understand why they'd do that what with flying units being the ultimate example of selective hard counters (you can't nuthin' about them if you can't reach them), but the flattening of gameplay is a bad, bad result.
@@adeptusjoker7176 CoE5 is a well designed game, and I'd say it's more difficult to cheese than Dominions because much of what you have access to, in terms of boosting your base units, comes from randomly gained magic items and units you can find/steal. Whereas in Dominions you can build most of the stuff in the game, and so that is somewhat more predictable. They're hard games to compare, but if you've not played CoE much I advise trying it again. I love Dominions but I really f'cking love CoE, it's a magnificent game.
@@battlemode lol, I hate to sound like a fake fan but I’ve never played Dominions or CoE but I’ve read every LP I can get my hand on. I’d better to give CoE another shot ;3
RTS is really hard to learn and grasp upon. Not a game for the laid back types of gamers. Not a game for the fast action pack shooter. Definitely not a game for newer players entering the gaming world. It's a game for the niche audience. Even I get bored after 1-2 hours of playing.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests! I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out. Oh, and good name for the podcast.
Thanks for the feedback! There's two other audio only episodes we'd recorded prior to deciding on the podcast name and recording this episode, they'll be uploaded here shortly. I wanted to check with Ben before uploading. I'll also be looking into more ways to make this podcast visible as well as making it available in more places in the near future.
My biggest problem with the newer rts games is there’s too much invested in the multiplayer component at the expense of single player experience. The last few weeks I’ve reinstalled homeworld, DoW, AoE 2 and are having a great time. The essence of these types games have been lost in newer games to dull first hour of boring chores or the fun sucked out of them to keep them balanced for multiplayer.
Your first point is reflected in GiantGrantGaming's survey, that 80% of the RTS genre never enters multiplayer in the first place, with only 7% wanting Esports on launch compared to the 65~% who want a campaign on launch.
So glad we have this new podcast!! I hope it's here to stay
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests!
I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out.
Oh, and good name for the podcast.
@30:00 At a fundamental level I think the big problem is the needs of the industry as it exists in its current form. People blame F2P models, phones, culture wars, and they are all cancer but the more I think about, it the more it seems it is simply a function of the size of these companies. There is very little room for creativity in a place like EA or Activision. There can't be. The cost of failure is too high. Hell, we're seeing exactly that sort of failure play out across the industry pretty much at time of recording. Ubisoft is pretty much staggering around the room tripping over its guts like a zombie at time of recording. The hypercompetitive market that the big titans operate in forces them to try and latch on to any sort of success and ride it into the ground. Anything that can't meet that bar, simply cannot exist. Games out of those studios have to be live service, because it allows continued 'line go up' long past the release of the game for very little effort. They have to work that way though because they are publicly traded companies and the investor class needs an ever growing slice of the pie.
Problem is though and Ben hits on it at the 35 minute mark is that the market they are trying to capture with a live service game simply doesn't exist. Most people want to play their 20 hours and move on. They don't want to play the same game for a thousand hours... but the publishers need the live service to survive because games cost so flipping much to make that they need the ability to churn out cheap content for the next two years that people will buy in order to make the line keep going up, while they shovel money into the next big shiny... And then people wonder why they grind their staff into dust.
Then Lucid's point on the difficulty of AI programming for pathfinding means that the game can't be cheap, because it is very hard to do. It's the same reason why complex turn based strategy games will always be niche. It's hard to do good AI. The AI for some sort of cover shooter/action adventure/stealth/FPS can be 'good enough' by simply not being completely brainless, recognizing where the player is in relation to themselves, knowing what cover is and finally, which way to point the loud end of their sharp object. Give bosses a pattern for the player to work out. Think everything from Assassins Creed, to Call of Duty, to God of War to Cyberpunk to that Chinese game about the magic monkey that got real popular for a while... Name a big banner game from one of the big studios and it will probably fit that box. They only work because they DON'T spend money on AI can therefor spend money on cool shiny things like the lighting effects on the weaponskin you just unlocked and blow peoples minds with the graphics.
I think this is pretty likely.
The only successful RTS games from now on will be cheaply made, then their relatively small return will be worth that tiny investment.
Without even watching fully I can tell confidently that the fall of rts can be blamed almost entirely on the idea of pvp and competetive gameplay, while wast majority of the rts players care pretty much only about capaign/skirmish vs bots
RTS is not a dead genre as in it's lacking a fan-base. It's just that most studios and publishers are more attracted to genres that are more financially attractive. Currently, and for the last few years, most publishers have been almost obsessed with 'games as a service' green-lighting titles like MMO's and team shooters.
I find all this pathfinding talk kinda funny since one of the more popular RTS games, Starcraft Brood War has a lot of janky pathfinding itself! Good luck getting your squad of Dragoons down the ramp nicely :) I do agree that it feels like a lot of art has been lost in game dev in general and RTS games are incredibly hard to make.
I personally think classic RTS genre isn't dead, but it was too successful at spawning new ones to it's own detriment. Back in the day if you wanted to play a MoBA, a TD or an auto battler, you played RTS. Like I think back to Stronghold's economy missions and honestly is there much difference between that and Factorio/Mindustry? You collect resources and build up a base while defending from occasional attacks from enemies. So is Factorion an RTS? Mindustry even has PvP, and mission selection. Basically my point is that most of the casual RTS players have found their own more mechanically niche genre that they switched to and have little reason to go back to playing RTS games that might come with a lot of extra things they don't enjoy.
There is a good video that talk more about this called: Why are some new RTS not fun? Are they even proper RTS games? by GrubbyTalks
Since this is the first episode I wish you guys talked more about what this podcast will be about. Just gaming in general? Also ending the episode with an announcement of what the next one will be about is always nice since the listener can 'prepare' for it in some way. Also please put links to videos that you reference in the description.
Overall good episode, looking forward to the next one
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, analysis and feedback. I like your point about games like factorio and mindustry carving out their own niches..
As for future episodes; next one is going to be about AOW4 - is it good or is it trash :D We have a few folks who have pretty different thoughts about it.
Quick response regarding the last bit of your comment - we (I'm Shaun from this video) have published two audio only episodes prior but we hadn't figured out a podcast name at the time. They'll be uploaded here ASAP, they're currently up on Ben's TH-cam channel and I wanted to get his ok before uploading them here as well.
As far as I'm aware it'll be a general gaming podcast. A mix of deep dives, interviews and more casual episodes. Whatever we want to talk about really, aiming for something good quality but not over-produced if that makes sense.
Very much appreciate the feedback! We're figuring out some of this stuff as we go and it's a very busy time of year, with people being on holidays and that sort of thing but I'd like to get an end of year/our personal gaming highlights episode published by the new year and we're going to do that Age of Wonders episode Lucid referred to.
@@fragtactics Thank you! And happy holidays!
Giant Grand Games made a video about the same topic a while back called: The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why.
He made the argument that the genre isn't dead, but the developers are just not putting in the work to give the new RTS games a solid foundation. And that's something RTS games need far more than other games. Though you are right that I can also see the problem being a lack of expertise.
There are a few other problems, like trying to cater too much to multiplayer and E-Sports and ignoring the single player and campaigns.
18:15 I agree with the readability, though I do think that Starcraft is not that bad with it's readability. It might be because I played it more than Age of Empires, but I can distinguish the Starcraft units better than the Age of Empire ones. Screenshots are always harder to get a read on because the units don't move. If you see the units in the actual game they are far more distinct due to movement. But yeah, there are definitely games that focus too much on looking nice. I have one game that is basically Conquest of Elysium in 3D and the unit all looks so similar that you have no idea what is what.
One old RTS game I love to play from time to time is Warzone 2100.
1:14:04 There are some pretty big difference in power levels between single and multiplayer in Total War Warhammer. You can boost low tier units to absurd level with lord skills and technologies, which are both missing in the multiplayer battles. Also for multiplayer there are unit limits. For example you can only bring a certain amount of big monsters.
1:16:46 The multiplayer games are definitely also tactically. There are some pretty hard counters and just throwing your big monster into the wrong blob on infantry can easily lose you the game.
Total Warhammer is definitely not immersion breaking for me as it's a high fantasy setting and you have lore characters performe even more absurd feats than you can do in the game. I think one of the issues might be that the Warhammer series had a very silly start. Case in point: The naming convention for the Lizardmen.
1:34:59 The one problem I had with Age of Wonders 4 is: Too many decisions that matter too little.
I want a game that lets me make impactful decisions. And not having to constantly tweak things for a minuscule outcomes. I enjoy Planetfall a lot more in that regard as it allows me to make decision who's impact I can feel.
I agree, it isn't dead. Especially since there a lot of older RTS games that are still played a lot. Age of Empires 2. Supreme Commander Forever. Probably quite a few more.
Is not dead, we just need a good new game. But since Developers cant cash in on the genre they wouldnt make. You cant microtransaction a RTS, neither can you create a Season pass of it.
Well, they could try, but wouldnt make any ficking sense. Since a RTS should be working and finished completely.
Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders, Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Army Men (rts), Rise of Nations, Pretorians a few lesser known rts games from early 2000s
Subscribed. I like the subjects and the insights. Since Lucid asked for honest feedback, here it goes: I don't know the names of the other two guys it would be nice if the guy on the left had a greenscreen, Lucid had a camera and everyeone had their nametags. It is hard to understand the guy on the left. It would also be nice if the games you were going to talk about had the gameplay showing on the screen instead of searching for it real time. The searching for information and images should be done in a different screen and it only put on the shared screen if the information or image is found. In general, everyone should be more high energy.
To stay on the topic, i heard all of them ok during a drive, so dont know where that is comming from.
And I liked the realtime showing of games in the background. Its a podcast and most of the time they dont show anything, so if one/3 hosts can show some stuff while the other 2 are talking is a plus vs just having a static screen.
Not to say your points arent valid, just that some of us have different take on them.
Main reason why I don't prefer RTS strategy games is the required apm skills for high level play. I can just pour some coffee/tea and relax while playing turn based ones and be just fine.
If I want to play a game that requires continuous attention, I go for Mobas(only Dota 2) as it requires way less apm.
I used to average ~170 apm in Starcraft2 but as I lost my youth It became harder and harder for me to keep up and I eventually lost interest as it became very tiring.
Edit: I am not interested in playing RTS games single player after finishing campaigns.
You really don't need high APM skills for most RTS games until you hit professional levels of play, which 99.9% of people will never reach (nor want to, I suspect).
I think competitive Starcraft etc has really contributed to a false perception there and that's a big contributor to people abandoning RTS now. Lucid and I had a disagreement on this point though and I forget if we brought it up here or not, but if not it might be a good addendum episode.
I love multiplayer, but somehow it usually hurts too much when loosing in an RTS. I don't know why. Maybe because of the time invested in every game. I don't experience the same problem with FPS or Dota.
How can one make RTS PvP sustainable/fun for casual/normal players? TBS don't have the same emotional impact, but that's not an option for me because of how long time each game takes. Maybe TBT thoug..
More of this! Thanks!
You forgot about Zero-K. It deserves a mention. I would like to hear a podcast about how open source can create new technical, mechanic and content baselines. Especially for hard stuff like RTS.
Think Shaun mentioned it briefly but yes, good catch! I (BATTLEMODE) didn't play Zero-K so I've no experience with it, but I do like Beyond All Reason a lot.
In fact, I still love the original Total Annihilation. It still plays very well today.
Just chilling here 4am on boxing day listening to this :)
Thanks Drex, let us know what you think of the video format.
As a person that's never really liked real-time strategy games because they aren't strategy.
I really think they're poised to make a huge comeback.
You don't actually do strategy as much as you do tactics in an RTS. You only have tactical control. Aka, clicking units.
With AI, I can voice command instead, and let the AI handle the tactics, while I think strategy and big picture.
Same thing with real-time 4X games, like like X-4 Foundations.
And space sims like X-Wing/TIE Fighter.
Did Femine won that battle against Pyrene?! That looked like a hard fight to win
BATTLEMODE here, I forget exactly which one it was, but I think that battle was played on a youtube series on LA Feminie I did back on release. I won the battle handily but as usual lost a bunch of communion slaves because I can't be bothered with math when I'm playing :D
Aaaaand... subscribed.
Thanks!
1:15:00 the conversation gets kinda weird and inconsistent here. They start with criticizing TW as being silly and not-grounded what with the fantasy warmaking going on but then in Conquest of Elysium there're all kinds of broken techniques and he's praising it all. It comes across as merely praising the game you like rather than making a meaningful critique.
To answer that, you have to understand that each game plays to a certain kind of desire in the player.
The early TW games were historical and were pretty damn good for historical accuracy, as far as RTS games go. So to go from that to seeing a Hero + artillery unit tie up and destroy a 1,000+ man army is incredibly immersion breaking. Warhammer is still tied to some expectation of realism from the player.
Conquest of Elysium doesn't have the same expectation of realism from the player, but still manages the realism far better than TW: Warhammer.
In CoE, even a powerfully equipped hero that MIGHT be able to tank a whole army can still be killed by a single peasant's arrow with some luck, and there is nothing inherently unfair in the game as a result. Sure, you can run across situations that are difficult to overcome in the short term but knowledge is king, and learning the game mechanics tames those seemingly "broken" situations into something you can actually handle.
Also consider the situation I discussed with Master of Magic vs Age of Wonders 4 and the removal of flying units.
Lucid makes a great point about power fantasy: TW: Warhammer is a great power fantasy game but it is easily cheesed and that ruins the fun if you're the kind of gamer who cannot stop yourself playing with cheesy tactics. Conquest of Elysium can be cheesed too but you have to search harder for those cheesy strategies, and they are far less obvious.
@@battlemode That is interesting. Is CoE easier or harder to cheese than Dominions? I had heard that CoE was less serious (and therefore, I assumed, easier to break).
That is a fair point about player expectations. I've long been in the TW3 sphere, so I reckon I stopped seeing the absurdities as such and more as simply aspects of the game.
That really sucks about removing flying units. I understand why they'd do that what with flying units being the ultimate example of selective hard counters (you can't nuthin' about them if you can't reach them), but the flattening of gameplay is a bad, bad result.
@@adeptusjoker7176 CoE5 is a well designed game, and I'd say it's more difficult to cheese than Dominions because much of what you have access to, in terms of boosting your base units, comes from randomly gained magic items and units you can find/steal. Whereas in Dominions you can build most of the stuff in the game, and so that is somewhat more predictable.
They're hard games to compare, but if you've not played CoE much I advise trying it again. I love Dominions but I really f'cking love CoE, it's a magnificent game.
@@battlemode lol, I hate to sound like a fake fan but I’ve never played Dominions or CoE but I’ve read every LP I can get my hand on. I’d better to give CoE another shot ;3
What a MAJESTIC beard
@@Dakkalazy haha thanks! Getting a lot of positive comments about it
Broken Arrow?
Pretending you don't know why larger game companies can't produce quality games anymore devalues your channel. Be brave.
What do you think the problem is?
RTS is really hard to learn and grasp upon. Not a game for the laid back types of gamers. Not a game for the fast action pack shooter. Definitely not a game for newer players entering the gaming world. It's a game for the niche audience. Even I get bored after 1-2 hours of playing.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests!
I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out.
Oh, and good name for the podcast.
Thanks for the feedback! There's two other audio only episodes we'd recorded prior to deciding on the podcast name and recording this episode, they'll be uploaded here shortly. I wanted to check with Ben before uploading. I'll also be looking into more ways to make this podcast visible as well as making it available in more places in the near future.